3790159

Down Memory Lane: Representations of Domestic Workers in Middle Class Personal
Narratives of Colonial Bengal

Author(s): Swapna M. Banerjee
Source: Journal of Social History, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Spring, 2004), pp. 681-708
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3790159
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DOWN MEMORY LANE: REPRESENTATIONS OF DOMESTIC
WORKERS IN MIDDLE CLASS PERSONAL NARRATIVES OF
COLONIAL BENGAL
By Swapna M. Banerjee University of Florida
ln the last decades of the twentieth century, the reasons for the long lac
representation can be said to fall within the realm of common knowledge. W
of how society was structured in past times, of who wrote and read and w
the cultural consequences ofunequal power. Knowing all this, we are likely
that the dominators have monopolized the power to represent, while the do
no option but to endure passively through centuries of abusive synecdoche.
?Bruce Robbins, The Servant's Hand.1
If one rummages through the pages of autobiographies and memoi

gali middle-class men and women living in colonial times one ca
miss the characters and activities of the domestic workers surro
thors as they were growing up. The repeated appearance of serva
in middle-class reminiscences testifies to the importance of this
lation in the lives of their empioyers. Numerical evidence from t
India (1911, 1921, 1931) also suggests that domestic service const
the principal occupations of colonial Bengal.2 From the 1880s on
increasing demand in the hiring of servants in Bengal and by th
of the twentieth century domestic service accounted for 12 per
cupations in Calcutta, as opposed to 7.3 per cent in Bombay, 6.6
Madras, and 6.1 per cent in Delhi.3
The last few decades in South Asian history have witnessed a
engagement of scholars with marginal social groups such as slaves
prostitutes, and working class women, not to mention women of u
middling classes. The new literature also brings to the fore the
implication of the home and the domestic space and their impo
construction of individual and national identity.4 Striking by th
this literature on lower social groups are the domestic workers w
a major segment of the urban economy and were widely represen
ent genres of Bengali writings. Meredith Borthwick (1984), while
changing roles of nineteenth-century Bengali women, has inclu
counts of servants, matchmakers, washing women, and midwiv
families of colonial Calcutta.5 Radhika Singha (1998), examining
justice system under colonial laws, gives us an account ofthe natur
domestic relationships in the British households in India.6 Indr
(1999) brings to light the importance of slavery in ruling househ
India in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.7 But the exis
that concerns itself with family and domestic workers mainly
either on the contemporary period or on the middle class nation
erature misses out the significance ofthe colonial era and leaves th
682 journal of social history spring 2004
household and the family relatively unproblematized.9 The
cally represented by the ghar (private/home/domestic) is pr
to the world represented by bahir (public).10 The compos
Bengali family, its changing structure, its workings, and m
distribution of power within the household remain unaddr
The excessive focus on the middle-class members writes off th
ent caste-class groups thereby completely ignoring the subo
were a common feature of colonial households. In spite of
between the Bengali middle class and the domestic workers
made yet to explore in depth how the middle-class cultur
reforming trends in society and economy impacted on dome
nial Bengal. Nor is there any account of how the Bengali
domestic workers interacted with and were perceived by e
dearth of primary sources or written documents left by th
in the colonial period acts as a stumbling block. Since hou
"site of production" for the domestics the latter were also
generation of Indian labor historians who did not consider t
segment of the "working-class" engaged in the daily battle
the story of domestic service in Bengal demands attention
importance of the serving population in shaping the lives
employers in urban households compels us to re-think an
proper historical perspective.
Attempting to fill this lacuna, my paper explores one of
employer-servant relationships through a selective reading
sonal narratives. The preoccupation of South Asian scholar
class has been often attributed to the abundance of data and
available from the elites. Undeniably, it holds true for any c
vice class as subordinate actors in a hierarchically structure
spoke freely or captured their feelings and imaginations in
what we know about them is expressed in the discourse of
Yet albeit restricted in number, in countries where research
on domestic workers there exist some public documents s
or non-governmental organizations' reports and surveys, o
vants themselves, that provide the servants' perspective ofthe
Given the remarkably high rate of illiteracy among the wo
the general apathy of preserving records there is almost no d
from servants in colonial India. Domestic workers did appe
category in the Indian censuses but that information is far
the lives and views of domestic servants have not been reco
tory, this paper, relying on the perceptions of the middle-c
infer from them the nature ofthe relationships between em
in middle-class households of colonial Bengal.14 Here house
both treated as cultural constructs and not mutually indep
of each other. Family is recognized as the "conjugal kin gro
household," marked by symbols, values, and meanings, wh
concerned with activities like production, consumption, a
rected to the satisfaction of human needs. This essay und
through their commitment to the notion of the family ar
DOWN MEMORY LANE 683
"material relations of the hou

single unit representing unifie
of struggle where each membe
interests, entered into both c
another. In the context of colo
lived in a common household,
and sex roles were determined,
cooperation took place.16 Furth
tailed several ethnic and racia
strata: the households of the
wealthy households of the earl
households ofthe ordinary mid
for domestic help. For our pur
households?that of the Tagore
Through two distinct but int
writers and experiences of
workers?this paper document
and maintained employer-serva
erness" through the simultaneo
ties. Far from an exhaustive stu
literature, the essay focuses on
by both the male and female m
the "strength" and "authority
Bengal witnessed a tremendous
as a primary vehicle for articu
the rich matrix of the coloni
article are selected on the bas
with regard to servants. First,
their experiences of growing u
accounts betray, positively or
mous power within colonial h
published at a later date in the
they actually reflect on the co
argument over whether servan
the voice of servants from sou
subject. This essay is about a p
a prominent genre of Bengali
emotionality and sentiments t
points out the politics that la
empioyers' memories that me
paper investigates not only h
justified a particular kind of r
A good part of my sources is
one of the aristocratic Brahmo
1784.19 The Brahmos, professin
from orthodox Hinduism in co
1829 this religious group was c
policies and played a key ro
family not only gave leadership to the religious movement
were also extremely powerful socially and culturally, produc
known intellectuals, artists, and litterateurs of colonial Ben
of them being the Nobel-laureate poet Rabindranath Tago
other affluent households of contemporaneous Calcutta, m
of servants, and it was probably because of their tremendo
recollections of members of the Tagore families are replet
growing up with servants. The rich documentation of dome
accounts for my heavy emphasis on them despite their excl
status. Similarly, many ofthe other writers cited in this pape
Brahmo community. The choice of Brahmo writers is not d
a matter of availability. Given their distinct socio-cultural
produced a large number of intellectuals who engaged in the e
their life's experiences. Also, as a renegade community th
many instances had to break away from their ancestral f
their own households. In those situations wives of those m
the entire responsibility of household work as opposed to H
where there would be several women including destitute
who performed different kinds of domestic work. It is thus
families needed more hired domestic workers than the Hin
the other two dominant religious communities of colonial B
one may surmise that the Brahmos, as a breakaway group fr
less rigid with caste distinctions and adopted a more liberal po
of domestics. But as some of the contemporaneous accoun
of breaking away from the orthodoxy of Hinduism, the
fact, transcend the caste barriers in real life.20 However, b
further a few words about the Bengali middle class (bhadral
the servants are in order.
Bhadralok, Bhadramahila, and the Domestic Workers
As Bengal harbored the seat of the British imperial capi

Calcutta until 1911, Bengali culture was shaped in unique
other Indian cities. Once the British had monopolized their
trade and land revenue in Bengal by the second half of the
Calcutta and its hinterland became the focus of British econ
the country. These changes in the political-economic stru
the social landscape. The first four decades of the nineteent
the growth of a newly rising educated middle-class (madhy
who came from predominantly upper caste Hindus (Brahm
Vaidyas) and called themselves bhadralok, literally meaning
"gentlemen."21 The members of this class, comprising a het
mobile, cultural community of professionals, bureaucrats, and
vital for the maintenance of the British rule and they claim
native public opinion."22
The Bengali bhadralok, i.e. the "respectable middle-class"
main groups: the abhijat (aristocratic) and the grihastha (
madhyabitto sreni (middling class). Long before any other s
tled in Calcutta, the abhijat bh

in English as "comprador-rajas
mindars and the top administra
manently settled in the city i
They rapidly acquired huge w
intermediaries with the Britis
middle-income group madhyab
were the poor bhadralok (daridr
life-style as the upper two gro
of a new political class was no
but shaped by the aspiration t
madhyabitto or sikkhita sampr
preexisting aristocracy of dew
nians (tradesmen) who were a
the toiling masses from town
or Muslims.26 The bhadralok a
petty landholding thus constit
similar groups in other parts o
nineteenth century madhyabitt
term bhadralok. It was in the tw
movement of 1905, that the te
of the Anglo-Indian Civil Serv
the nascent bhadralok fostered
two distinct cultural communit
itorhk or chhotolok. This divis
middling classes and the "uncu
term bhadra meaning "polite"
(mukhya and mandal) was ver
a social group, did not appear
higher order of Bengali societ
madhyabitto denoting the "mid
Bhadramahila or the "respecta

was the female counterpart of
daughters, and sisters ofthe u
fined by the middle-class male
with the reinvented notion of
the limits of the wife-mother
began to influence and change
They harmonized what they va
ered worthy of imitation in th
responded to the spread of edu
from reading Hindu scriptures
of manuals against the injustic
The tying up of women into
urban Bengali middle class was
the erosion of caste ties in th
factors called for the creation
degree of class polarization that required sharper differen
level. The new model ofthe bhadramahila was thus conceiv
kind of segregation on women. Middle-class women's ide
defined by distinguishing them from not only the "weste
"wealthy parvenu families making a fortune out of imper
also from the majority of "common" working women who
as loud, vulgar, coarse, and sexually promiscuous.33 In sp
distancing the channels for continuity between middle- a
and relationships were the domestic service, village and
tions, maintained through the social ceremonies and festivals
through the labor ofthe women ofthe economically lower
ofthe housewife became more and more elaborate and co
the manifold functions of a nurturing and sacrificing moth
there was an increase in the employment of domestic ser
decades of the nineteenth century.
Employment of domestics in urban households was not a
of colonial Bengal. The genealogy of domestic service in
far back as the Vedic times. But the growth of an urban wag
Bengal along with the cultural factors contributed to an u
domestic servants in Bengal. As the imperial capital unti
administrative, commerciai, and cultural center of the Be
cutta attracted from the countryside a diverse population
rich and the poor. Just as expanded opportunities offered by
tion fostered a mobile group of English educated professi
environment of the urban economy. also served the lower
ciety consisting of traditional artisans and craftsmen wh
from neighboring villages in search of employment. But t
craftsmen and artisans, who had flocked to the city with
success in the eighteenth century, received a hard blow by t
teenth, being unable to compete with the European trades
the metropolis to satisfy the rich clientele. By the last qua
century the majority ofthe once-prosperous artisans and cr
to the ranks of lowliest laborers?the barbers and washerm
scavengers. The Census of 1876 lists a wide range of dome
khansamas or butlers, cooks, gardeners, barbers, water-car
resided mostly outside the city limits.35
The changed economic scenario also had very different
lower-class working women. Their share in total employmen
in 1901 to 17 per cent in 1911 and 12 per cent in 1921.36
domestic service accounted for over 70 per cent of women
services in Bengal. By 1931, when women were pushed o
employment domestic service became the only non-agricu
them.37 The steady marginalization of both male and female
their original caste-based trades and their absorption into
force closely related to the rising middle-class culture in B
The term servant in Indian parlance has a very wide im
to Samsad English Bengali Dictionary (1981) the word servant
into chakar, vritya, or karmachari, the latter indicating
who serve in some form or ano

from the category of slaves tra
Bengali Dictionary (1981) also de
a helpless victim of any domina
the institution of slavery that
records with respect to India a
acceptance by most ofthe South
with the meaning ofthe term "se
in their zeal to codify laws on
precise definition of servant in
Handy Book on the Law of Mast
Barrister-at-law and Advocate o
[t]he word "servant," in its ordina

servants of the domestic or menia
one who is bound to perform ser
another, his "master," whether th
stipulated consideration_4
In colonial Bengal any person

or manufacturing tasks for run
or its members fell within the w
of servants included a vast rang
chaprashis (office messenger), an
in government offices to the sa
ers), malis (gardeners), dai-ees (
ing in regular households.42 In
hierarchical division of labor, in
extended into and overlapped w
customary for women ofall ages
widowed sisters, destitute fema
kin networks often substituted
primarily concerned with those
biological ties with the empioy
the colonial households. It does
washermen/women, milkmen, g
the large body of domestic work
From the later decades of the
female, not only appeared frequ
satires of colonial Bengal but th
while writing about them. The
servants was evident in the a
century Bengali print-culture, w
formed domesticity for the bhad
of other social classes. Written b
manuals devoted an entire chap
have with servants.44 How impo
can be gieaned from the statem
who asserted that "[T]here is n
without a servant... one needs servants to perform domes
are necessary even to travel around; without servants it is im
one's dignity"45 The extensive code of behavior towards ser
logues laid down for Bengali women urged the new woman
attitude towards the domestics and to treat them as family
barga). While the steady stream of references to domestics
of maternalistic behavior towards them implied the accepta
mestic help in colonial Bengal, the employment of servants
homes was often scrutinized with suspicion by the same id
manuals. Women having servants to help in household cho
the gravest concerns ofthe Bengali writers?they described i
ence of modern education that the West had brought about
paid domestic help were viewed as victims of supposed West
laziness among them and prompted them to defy their econ
dards. Employment of domestics, therefore, became an imp
distinguish and counterpose the "modern" woman against her
hard-working, traditional counterpart. The manual writers
the servants to situate, explain, and even denounce the ne
invoking servants as subaltern to the new woman, the texts
of the new housewife in the family hierarchy. The writers
the housewives from the servants by spelling out the househ
and maintaining distinctions in the nature of work to be perf
individual members.46
The most active images of servants, however, appeared in
tobiographies, memoirs, and reminiscences of the Bengali
the manuals displayed the bhadraloVs concern with servant
level and short stories, novels, plays, and satires were all work
nations, the personal narratives came closest to convey ing a
in representing the employer-servant relationship. Obfusca
and hierarchies laid out in the manuals, the personal narrat
intimate tone and depicted how the discursive practices w
day to day living. Surprisingly, despite the expioitative asp
differentials between the employers and the domestics, the
this genre were mostly portrayed in a positive light. A domin
through many of the personal narratives is the portrayal o
as both authoritative figures and as hapless actors who calle
attention from their employers.47 This is, however, not to de
in middle class writings, often coming from the same author
promiscuity, dishonesty, laziness, weaknesses, and foibles of
ers. But the personal narratives under consideration reveal
of such themes and by dwelling more on the strengths ofthe d
employers engaged in a critique of themselves. The narrati
only the disjuncture between ideology and lived-experience
the ambivalence and ambiguity in middle class cultural pat
The sources under scrutiny underscore instances of nurtur
female workers but there are many other instances of intim
care that developed between male domestic workers and th
tween same-age workers who of

While discussion of such areas
it is important not to conflate
Down Memory Lane: Remini

ings
As Bengali personal narratives mostly come from members of the well-to-do

middle class their writings abound with memories of growing up in the company
of servants. The presence of servants, however marginal and sketchy, in these
writings also makes it clear that servants formed an integral part of urban families
in the early half of the twentieth century. But some writers have added a twist to
their memories of servants. They infused their intimate memories with a sense of
indebtedness to the domestic workers that they could not overcome. By writing
about the servants the Bengali middle class acknowledged those under-privileged
people who crowded their world. The effort was to immortalize the domestics
through their writings.49 Kalyani Datta, a member of the current generation
of the Bengali middle class and an eminent woman writer known for her deep
insights into Bengali domestic culture, thus stops suddenly before concluding
her reminiscences of the "Women's World" (Me^emahal) as it existed in early
twentieth-century Calcutta. All at once the swelling memories of "Kunjadada"
and "Bejodidi," the old domestics who served her family, overwhelm her with
nostalgia.50 In thinking of them she writes:
[I]t was they [the servants] who spent all their lives in our families and brought us
up_They fed us, bathed us, and put us to sleep by soothing our cries. At the
crack of dawn they brought home vessels full of water; at daybreak, they shopped
and cooked; at the end of day, after neatly arranging the house like a pearl, they lit
the evening lamps.... We have not been able to give them anything beyond two
pieces of clothing and napkins every year, boxes full of betel and tobacco leaves
and hands and feet eaten with chilblain.51
As premeditated or deliberate as Kalyani Datta's style of presentation is, it

surely indicates her attempt to pay tribute to those domestic workers who fa-
cilitated Bengali middle-class life.52 Persistent in these writings is the image of
hard working, faithful, and loyal servants as permanent members of the Bengali
households. Combined with this image is the feeling of gratitude and obligation
resulting in a sense of guilt and loss. There is a constant effort on the part ofthe
writers to portray the employer-servant relationship as one of patronage and a
legacy ofthe pre-colonial feudal aristocratic culture that nurtured such relation?
ships. The regret of the authors for giving very little in return for the services
rendered by their domestic workers was often associated with a sense of loss and a
changing time. Alluding to an idealist 'feudal' lineage the writers agonized over
the fact that servants who were considered a part of the extended family in the
past were fast becoming outsiders in an altered urban scenario. In recompense
the authors celebrated the authority and power that the servants wielded over
children and the younger members of the family. Even when they adopted a
critical attitude towards servants and complained of their theft or indolence the
critique did not take the form of an unqualified blame. R

patronizing tone tempered with good humor and love. O
tended to downplay the domination and highlight the aff
Yet if the middle-class memories of the servants from t
simplistic, I contend that there are deeper reasons embe
of writing autobiographies and memoirs at a particular his
Personal narratives emerged as a strikingly new genre in c
ture and they acted as a chief instrument for the articulatio
While the "inner self" ofthe Bengali middle class did not p
narratives there was still an element of "confession" invol
Throughout the nineteenth century the middle class India
the upper class patriarchy, both in their orthodox and refor
thoroughly scrutinized, discussed, and problematized by
ment and by themselves.55 While Bengali autobiographers
their memories of growing up with servants through their
what is evident in this genre is a kind of "self-subjectiv
gaged assessment of the morality of practices."56 The con
these narratives, like other colonial discourses, projects a
their own selves, an auto-critique, to conform to their ne
modernity and progress. The discussion of employer-serv
positivistic mode can hence be read as a site for the self-f
gali middle class. The Bengali middle class's act of rememb
perhaps prompted more by their desire to critique themse
rected self image, to reflect on their present state of bein
of immortalizing servants through paying homage. It is i
sis, in recognizing that "childhood" is appearing "throug
adult" that I propose to read the autobiographical writings
class.57
Growing Up With Domestics: In version of Hierarchy: Perspectives of Boys
One ofthe earliest memories recalled by Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941),

the famous Nobel-laureate poet, novelist, and musician, is that of the "servoc-
racy" or the Vrityarajak Tantra that flourished in his household.58 Rabindranath
writes that he grew up in a crowded house where nobody even cared how many
members were related by blood. The air was filled with the noise and clatter of
servants and maids from every quarter. He remembers the maid Pyaridasi carry-
ing a basket full of vegetables from the market; Dukhan behara (bearer) bringing
water from the river Ganga, a weaver woman selling cloth; but the memory that
lingers with him is the story of subordination and intimidation that he and his
siblings suffered at the hands of the servants. They were beaten and mistreated
and even subjected to severe punishment by the servants from time to time. The
children's "sedition" against servants?their only weapon of protest?was cry-
ing aloud?something that the servants earnestly hated. So the caregivers would
drown their weeping by holding their mouth inside huge earthen water-vessels.59
From Rabindranath's sarcastic recounting of the tension between the "pow?
erful" servants and the "seditious" children of the Tagore family it would seem
that although he was quite critical of the care-giving servants he could not deny
their presence in his life. His ot

felt, and authoritative relations
later life. In fact, through his f
immortalized in the minds of t
loyal, faithful, long-suffering ser
employer.60
The way Abanindranath Tagor
phew of Rabindranath, recalls hi
His earliest memories of growi
hearted" Padmadasi fills him w
left an indelible impression on
He remembers an angry exchang
fat" maid named Rosho. Sudden
against the wall. Blood ran down
was furious with rage. Abanind
ran to her help. The doctor cam
time he saw her. He waited and
come back. He writes:
Leaving her own home in some village came my Padmadasi who was as black as
darkness_She went back angry; she told stories, quarreled, worked, and left us
a long time back. As a reward for bringing me up she received a thick gold chain
and a blood spot on her head. Perhaps nobody in the whole world except me has
any impression left of her? Perhaps that is why while narrating my own story, I
could see that distant woman who had no blood connection with me?sitting on
the other side of fifty-five years she was pouring milk in and out of the tumbler for
me ... 61
The bond that children developed with domestic servants resulted from the
close association they had with them from their birth. Sarala Debi Chaudhu-
rani (1872-1945), the celebrated freedom fighter and daughter of the writer
Swarnakumari Debi, Rabindranath's sister, notes at the very beginning of her
autobiography that children in the Tagore family, like many other wealthy fam?
ilies of Calcutta, were "entrusted to the care of a suckling mid-wife" soon after
they were born.62 Not surprisingly, given the extreme importance of maids in the
aristocratic families of Calcutta, they often acquired a position from which they
could not only protect a child but could also at times challenge the authority of
their empioyers.
The point can be well illustrated by the accounts of Pramodkumar Chattopad-
hyay (1885-1979), a well-known painter and travel writer. In his autobiography,
Pramodkumar noted that as a child he was an "object" of much sympathy and
compassion because of his frail health.63 But as he grew up his untamed activities
became a concern for his parents. Prankumar, alias Pramod Kumar, remembers
how a maid called Lakshmi, who brought him up, conjured up a story in his
defense. She started spreading words that the quiet child, who was born at the
time of the storm, had died. The storm had carried him away and replaced him
by a giant. She would say, "Was he a human being? He was a giant. Have you
seen somebody like him?" The effort by the maid to make up such a tale is
indicative of her willingness to defy the image of the little boy as a quiet, frail
child. The fact that Prankumar cherished this memory s
well-circulated story in the family. More striking is the stor
whom Prankumar writes:
While I was a young child, between two and four-five years

Rukmini left an indelible impression in my mind-She broug
and put up with all my tantrums. She also saved me several tim
my father. Because of that reason, she frequently quarreled wi
of that time were considered a part of the family. Their claim
less than that of other family-members-She had an affectio
love towards her was also very deep. In that house, next to m
grandmother, she was my greatest friend.
Like Abanindranath and Sarala Debi, Prankumar too, grew

of servants. He would sleep with Rukmini and not with his
would give a lot of advice to Prankumar. Rukmini, a stron
sincerely wanted that when Pramodkumar came of age, he
the "injustices" of his father's "unfair" regime.65
A significant moment in the narrative of childhood by
is that ofthe separation ofthe old domestics from their fam
those memories are recorded by capturing the contradicto
boy (author) and his parents or other adults. We hear fro
perhaps he "alone" in the world remembers his maid Padm
thereby automatically excludes the adult members from t
bering those servants under whose supervision the latter w
underscored the tension that existed between his father an
The child's recollection of a caring and nurturing servant
that of an angry or disgruntled parent towards the same ser
in the case of Prankumar.
The most heart-wrenching account of a servant's partin
reaction of the children and the mother come from the v
Premankur Atarthi (1890-1964), a film-maker, writer, a
important member ofthe Brahmo community. Extolling th
to the status of a great man (Mahapurush), this is how Pre
before us:
The great man (mahapurush) who was accursed to come and

was Dukhia. We called him Dukhi. I have never ever seen
a lively embodiment of sorrow. Poor him (Dukhia) was old a
night-blindness. He dragged his feet while walking at night. W
distance that Dukhi Maharaj was coming. He never replied to t
mother ... 68
Premankur Atarthi records how Dukhi lived below the stairs in their house
with his sole possession of a "bundle" and a portable clay oven on which he
cooked his own food. In the evening when Dukhi was done with his day's chores,
Premankur and his brother would often gather around him below the stairs to
listen to his stories. The quiet Dukhi turned garrulous as he narrated the tales
of his "homeland" to those young boys. Despite the many differences such as
caste, which Dukhi would cite as the main reason for not accepting food from his
empioyer's kitchen, Dukhi was

shared countless "private" thou
Atarthi distinctly recalls the d
school, learnt that Dukhia had
from their mother about the
old age was preventing Dukhi
to make the connection betwe
their mother's logic. While ple
noticed Dukhi's eyes glistenin
Dukhi left Premankur Atarthi
That bent, disappearing Dukhia-im

him, there was no end to the tea
at home or in my school with w
unfortunate boy has the power to
These excerpts from Atarthi

raising Dukhia to the status o
Atarthi automatically inverts
The description of the serva
sorrow," dwelling below the st
readily tells us the state of h
humbling status in the empio
the moments when Dukhia ass
"happy moments" when Dukhi
his own family members, that
more striking is how, despite
insistence on maintaining his c
identity by refusing to have f
The personal narratives of th
interacting with servants was
ality but was also very central
emerge from the male autobi
unity and conflict transcendi
of the authors and the domest
the domestic workers, such as
well as their parting moments f
the child-selves ofthe authors,
in the colonial families. It is in
powerlessness by inverting th
and their servants. In "imagin
with servants, the authors in m
tion and assigned to the servan
memories in which they were
mistreated, or abused by the d
tions with servants in their for
as powerless and at the mercy
tendency in memoir literature
through which it tried to vindicate its self-image. By ackno
ity servants wielded over middle-class children and by re
writing the authors tried to amend the wrongs and sanitize th
hierarchical relationship between employers and servants in
in these excerpts are not only the self-exculpatory motives
sive elements of domination deliberately subduing the coe
unequal relationship.70
The same self-critical mode infused with the humanizin
bourgeois civility appears strongly when the autobiographers
ing moment of parting with the domestic workers. They r
differing reactions of the older members of the family and
writers to the departure of the domestic workers. By emphas
in attitude and behavior between adults and children they
and inhumane treatment of servants in middle-class homes.
emotions expressed through their writings and the subtle
ments were somehow missing in the older age group indica
gap between the authors and their predecessors. The latter,
ent socio-cultural climate of a dying feudal aristocracy and p
sensibility to class and caste distinctions, perhaps did not
talk about the servants as an exploited group. Since person
literary genre flourished only in the late colonial period, man
even when present, were not recorded in the writings of th
The younger generations, on the other hand, were torn by
and felt the inner pressure to represent the domestics in th
process was not that simple.
The typical portrayal of the domestic workers by the bhadr
made possible by the latter's power "to observe, to pronou
other human beings as subject" and to represent them in w
highlighting the tension or focusing on the conflict and h
chose the moments of compliance and collaboration by serv
scoring the persuasive aspect of domination. The sweeping t
indebtedness overcame the elements of force and dominance
the unequal treatment of the domestics by the older genera
Strikingly, these "celebratory" representations of the dom
ers are further complicated by women's accounts. Women
past encounters with servants not only speaks for their ow
tivity but also gives an altogether different dynamic to dom
relationship. To situate the domestics in the larger hierarch
gali families, we thus need to take a closer look at the acco
women.
An Excursion into the Women's World: Power and Aut

in Colonial Bengali Families
There is a distinct difference in the way Bengali me

memories of servants.72 Strongly possessed by a desire to
and to establish a dialogue with their readers, the mod
women was different from that of men. Women's writi
emotions and feelings, were p

written in a colloquial languag
eration focus on the home and
between servants and their em
consciously ascribed power to
are more incisive, critical, and
domestics. For example, the t
hurani, a member of the Tagor
very different from that of h
autobiography:
A very common practice among th

in Jorasanko. Instead of the moth
a wetnurse. Soon after they were
to the care of a suckling mid-wi
have any further relationship w
either.76
In a tone of despair Sarala Debi further recounts that immediately after they
were born they "lost any direct touch" with their mothers.77 She wrote, "Like an
inaccessible queen she stayed away from us. Our maid's lap became our mother's
lap. I never knew what mother's affection was; mother never kissed me or pat me
gently with her hand"78 Dwelling heavily on both the "care" and "mistreatment"
she received from her maids, Sarala Debi also tells us that Mongola, the maid
assigned to her care, used to slap her every now and then. On the other hand
she refers to Shankari, assigned to the care of her cousin Usha, as a storehouse
of fairy tales. Many a night, if child Sarala could escape the strict vigilance of
her own maid Mongola, she slipped into her cousin Usha's bed and listened to
the fairy tales narrated by Shankari.79
Consider the case of Prasannamayi Debi (1857-1939), born into an up?
per caste aristocratic Brahmo family, and quite well known for her literary
achievements.80 In her writings about the "golden" past, Prasannamayi noted
that there was no dearth of domestic workers in the large wealthy families. Five
to six maids and two to three servants helped in the kitchen. But it was the
daily responsibility of the housewife to look after the meals of sons-daughters,
nephews-nieces, sons-in law, brothers-in law, other relatives including servants.
Describing the order in which meals were served she mentioned that new brides
would always eat after every one else had eaten. She wrote: "Even the servants
used to eat before the (junior) brides ate. But nobody felt insulted or got angry
with that_At that time the relationship between the servant and the master
was like that ofthe master (guru) and the disciple, the king and the subject, the father
and the son ... 81 [emphasis mine] While the tone of Prasannamayi's recollection
is rather euphemistic mixed with a nostalgia for the "golden past," we can infer
from her writing that the young brides in the traditional family were not only
in the lowest rungs ofthe family hierarchy, but were also subjects of "negative"
discrimination in the name of fulfilling responsibility, maintaining family honor,
and respectability.
Rassundari Debi's (1809-1899) account of her own life AmarJiban, the first
full-length autobiography to be written by an Indian woman in the nineteenth
century, also presents us with a similar picture. She ment
bride she had to cook twice daily for twenty to twenty-five
for her in-laws' household. The household had nine maid
formed outdoor chores. Rassundari, therefore, took care o
children but also performed all other domestic responsibi
dent is the fact that in colonial Bengali families young daugh
few arrangements in their favor. Women had to maneuve
an often oppressive and unfavorable social system that rar
needs and wellbeing. One may also argue in this context t
the servant and the employer-mistress was not very clear in
household chores in colonial homes. But a reading of oth
sources such as the household manuals reveals that the soci
tion and hierarchy between the mistress and the servants
by the colonial middle class who often started out by sayi
is not the maid of the house."83 Although the ideological
there obviously was a blurring of physical responsibilities
and the maid in families of colonial Bengal. It is also impo
that at the time Rassundari Debi was writing servants were y
in conventional Bengali households. They were hired mai
heavy-duty activities.84
The role and power of maids appear most poignantly in
Gupta's reminiscences of women's lives in the past. Whil
many qualities that women of the earlier generation displ
their tolerance and how they put up with myriad relative
household. She wrote:
Women in those days were hard working and efficient and they did all the domestic
chores themselves-Some families had one or two maids who were entrusted
with the responsibility of child-care. The housewives were afraid ofthe maids just as
they were of their sisters-in-law (emphasis mine). Some ofthe maids were quiet and
affectionate. But some were querulous. They drove young brides crazy by torturing
them in many ways. The brides secretly put up with this torture due to their
stupidity. Many will be surprised to hear about the tolerance of the housewives of
that time.85
We hear from Hemantakumari a story of an intimidated and suppressed young

bride, adjusting to an unfavorable social environment and reckoning even with
those who were below her sociaily and economically. The maid, in this scenario,
was a representative ofa powerful member ofthe in-laws' family who could com-
mand authority over a young and "powerless" daughter-in-law. The comparison
with a "tyrant" sister-in-law suggests that old maids often assumed an abusive
position with respect to newcomer brides. In men's accounts, we heard of ser?
vants' power only with respect to young children. But women, even as young
adults, had to abide by the power of old and authoritative servants.
To return to our discussion on the power of servants one can also draw insight
from a common custom practiced in the Tagore family of Jorasanko. Indira Debi-
Chaudhurani, Rabindranath's niece, writes in her memoir that the maids in the
Tagore family enjoyed so much power that they went to select the would-be
brides. The only exception was

Maids did not play a significant
To dwell only on the authorita
provides an incomplete picture.
who were faithful, affectionat
They often acted as protectors,
and young brides. A classic exam
Giribala Debi's Raibari, an autob
recounted the woman-writer's
Raibari revolves around the inte
to cope with the harsh environ
family.87 In the protagonist y
mother, the old maid, comes
stifling environment.88 Kamini
readily becomes her confidant
aunt, receives her affection and
through the complicated famili
The nurturing relationship th
attests to the sharing ofa comm
and seemed to evade the superi
the maid. The power of the ma
the hierarchical mistress-serva
maintained in representing Kam
prescribed parameters between
Kamini's mother rendered to Bi
vigilant empioyers. But why th
erless" member of her empioy
not just because of her compass
their mutual subordination in a
might also have emanated from
same village. Kamini's mother as
the zamindari household and ha
members. As an experienced ad
difficult domestic situations. B
Binu were both "powerless" and
over the actual resources and fu
Finally, it will be worth consid
that has more symbolic import
removed from the experiences o
and the maid, is rather an expr
his mistress. In the preface to
Debi Chaudhurani records how
One of her mentors was a Mus
her family. Noora Baburchi use
Mother.90 If you ever forget so
Such advice implied that by su
could overcome her difficulties
a tremendous sense of the cook's authority verging on au
himself to the status of a master (guru) with respect to hi
mean pronouncement from a member of a subordinated gr
the cook's confidence in the respect he commanded from h
he had imparted his knowledge of cooking.
A journey into the women's world thus offers a distinct
in the tonality and emotions by which domestic workers w
lived experiences of both men and women are not that diff
demonstrate the authority and sometimes abusive power
workers over younger members of the family. Women's writ
fore the sense of belonging that the domestic workers felt
family. Although both men and women acknowledge their
in the family hierarchy women's tone of representing the
nificantly from that of the males. The dispassionate and
accounts of women tend to balance out the deliberate inv
and sentimental recounting in men's writings. Incidentally
women's accounts capture the perceptions, sentiments, or e
ing class. While the nostalgia, affection, regret, or displeasu
writings bear testimony to the special position that the do
joyed in colonial families, the representations of the latte
women also indicate the power differential by virtue of w
could represent the employees in their own line of thought
The differences between men and women in representing
beg critical questions. Why were women more openly incis
men were more diplomatic and careful in recording experi
Any possible explanation forces us to recognize the differen
hood experiences between men and women. A closer look at
writings also gives us insights into their different status in
most important difference between men's and women's accoun
ent stages of life that they depicted: men recalled their mem
posed themselves as adults, mostly as young brides. The dif
be explained by the fact that given the custom of the age
wedlock at a very early stage in their lives, possibly in pre-tee
and therefore, their experiences of childhood were eclipsed
an young adult that a new bride was supposed to assume. W
pily" dwell on their "childhood" days, women were forced
responsible "adult" position at a relatively early stage in t
however, women recalled the power of the old domestics w
own relatively lower positions in the family hierarchy and
endured as young brides in a highly stratified, multi-generat
patriarchal in-laws' family.
Was it this lower ranking in the familial network that
critical of the domestic workers? The servants being the on
children in the family, women could perhaps assail them pu
sion of their own repressed and subordinated status it is
vented their resentments by critically writing about the s
and economically were subordinate to the women themsel
dissent attests to their subjectivity and agency which were
in the hierarchical colonial fam

emerges is a highly ambiguous
facets of employer-domestic re
Conclusion
The foregoing discussion demonstrates that the relationship between em?

pioyers and domestics in colonial Bengal was so nuanced and complex that it
defies any gross generalization. It entailed as much concern and caution, conflict
and tension as it did love, affection, and care. An exploration into the literary
expressions of the Bengali middle class took us to the complex world of the
colonial Bengali families with its hierarchies, dependence, and power networks.
Men, women, and domestic workers cohabiting the same domestic space not
only shared different kinds of relationships with one another but also had dif?
ferent access to family resources and labor. The diverse experiences narrated in
the autobiographical accounts reveal the heterogeneity of the Bengali middle
class and its families. The variegated nature ofthe colonial families, depending
on their economic and social backgrounds, determined the relationships with
domestic workers.
But the purpose of culling the multi-dimensional facets of empioyers and
servants is not just to provide a "thick description" of the relationships but
also to question why and how the domestics were represented in the "master
discourse" left by the empioyers. Do the literary representations provide a "real"
picture of the servants lives and their own world? Given that representations
always stand at a distance from the objects they represent what we find is the
synecdochic presence of domestic workers in the reminiscences of the Bengali
middle-class. That is, servants figured as part of a whole and never as complete
actors with complexities of their own lives. The servants' characters were not
transparent because none ofthe writers wrote with the intention of narrating the
life-stories ofthe servants. Both male and female writers determined their tone of
representation in a persuasive mode that downplayed the marks of coercion and
exploitation inhering in the domestic-employer relationship. Yet subscribing
to the same ideology advocated by their male counterparts women found in
the personal narratives an avenue to voice their hierarchical differences with
the domestic workers, a theme powerfully addressed in the domestic manuals
and internalized by most middle-class women. Interestingly however, the lived
experiences of subordination, fear, and torture described by the women happened
to defy the norms outlined in the manuals, namely, the mistress acting as the
commander of the hosuehold and being bestowed with the responsibility of
supervising and taking care of the servants. It is here that we also notice the
discrepancy between the discursive practices and the day to day living of the
Bengali middle class. What stands out nonetheless is the importance of the
domestic workers in colonial homes?a point emphasized in the manuals as well
as borne out by the experiences ofthe memoir writers. Instead of naturalizing or
homogenizing the servants as a subordinated group in a hierarchical household
the authors in fact redefined and extended the boundaries of the home and
the family to incorporate the intimacies and emotional connections with the
domestic workers.
The domestics, mostly illiterate, had neither the access n
read or write. They appeared as marginal characters to m
an incident, prove a point, resolve an action, or fulfill a n
have no existence apart from the impression they left upon
still possible to infer from the above accounts their own su
ruthlessness and affection, bullying and protection that the
in dealing with children and young brides and their refusal
employers' cultural practices are indicators of their strengt
their subordinated status in a complicated nexus of power
their moments of parting point to their ultimate powerle
relationship of home-based employment.
The persisting memories of men and women?inverting h
ing sentiments of close attachments, and the simultaneou
domestics?display attempts to erase the marks of dominati
and an effort to enunciate and enforce bourgeois moral valu
workers, on the other. The process of distancing and closen
domination attests to the refurbishing ofa new domestic cultu
taining middle-class identity unfolding within the domain
homes.
Department of History
Gainesville, FL
ENDNOTES
I am indebted to my colleagues at the University of Florida, particularly Professors Th
Galliant, Sheryl Kroen, and Mark Thumer for their comments on various versions o
paper. My special thanks goes to Sunetra Mitra, Arijit Banerjee, the anonymous rev
and the editor and coordinator of the Journal of Social History, from whose constr
suggestions and assistance I have greatly benefited.
1. Bruce Robbins, The Servant's Hand English Fictions From Behw (New York, 1
2. See Census of India, 1911, vol. 1, India. Part I, Report by E.A. Gait. Calcu
Superintendent Government Printing, India, 1913. Census of India, 1921, vol. 1,
Part I, Report by J. T. Marten (Calcutta, 1924); Census of India, 1931, vol. V, Beng
Sikkim, Part I, Report by A. E. Porter (Calcutta, 1933).
3. Census of India, 1911, vol. 1, India, Part 1. Part I, Report by E.A. Gait (Calcu
1913).
4. See Kathleen Adams & Sarah Dickey eds., Home and Hegemony: Domestic Service
and Identity Politics in South and Southeast Asia (Ann Arbor, 2000). Some other leading
works on lower social groups in Bengal are Sumanta Banerjee, Dangerous Outcast: The
Prostitutes in Nineteenth Century Bengal (Calcutta, 1998). Indrani Chatterjee, Gender,
Slavery and Law (New Delhi, 1999). Leela Fernandez, Producing Workers: the Politics
of Gender, Class, and Culture in the Calcutta Jute Mills (Philadelphia, 1997). Raka Ray,
"Masculinity, Femininity, and Servitude: Domestic Workers in Calcutta in th eTwentieth
Century" in Feminist Studies 26: 3 (2000). Samita Sen, Women and Labor in Late Colonial
India: the Bengal Jute Industry (Cambridge, UK, 1999).
5. Meredith Borthwick, The Changing Role of Women in Bengal 1849-1905 (Princeton,

1984).
6. Radhika Singha, A Despotism ofL

1998).
7. Indrani Chatterjee, Gender, Slavery and Law (Delhi, 1999).
8. See for example Adams and Dickey (2000) and Ray (2000) mentioned above for
the contemporary period. For the colonial period see Tanika Sarkar "The Hindu Wife
and the Hindu Nation: Domesticity and Nationalism in Nineteenth Century Bengal" in
Studies in History, 8, 2, n.s. (1992) and Partha Chatterjee, "The Nationalist Resolution
of the Women's Question" in Kumkum Sangari & Sudesh Vaid eds. Recasting Women:
Essays in Indian Colonial History (New Brunswick, NJ, 1990); and "The Nationalist Elite"
in The Nation and Its Fragments (Princeton, NJ, 1993).
9. Indrani Chatterjee's work mentioned above is an exception to that trend but it

spanned across the early colonial period and was restricted to the study of a noble house?
hold.
10. See Partha Chatterjee, op. cit.
11. This is a problem faced by most scholars working on subaltern population. See for
example, Karen Tranberg Hansen who expresses similar concern in her work Distant
Companions, Servants and Empioyers in Zambia, 1900-1985 (Ithaca, NY, 1989).
12. Authors working on servants in different regions of the world have discussed the
common problem of invisibility of servants in recent scholarship. For discussion of ser-
vant's low status and their consequent negiect in scholarly work, see Jacklyn Cock, Maids
and Madams: Domestic Workers Under Apartheid (London, 1989; first published 1980);
Shellee Cohen, "Just a Little Respect: West Indian Domestic Servants in New York City"
in Elsa Chaney & Mary Garcia Castro eds., Muchachas No More: Household Workers in
the Latin America and the Caribbean (Philadelphia, 1989); Patricia Mohamed, "Domes?
tic Workers in the Caribbean" in Elsa Chaney & Mary Garcia Castro eds., Muchachas
No More; Judith Rollins, Between Women: Domestics and Their Empioyers (Philadelphia,
1985); V. Tellis-Nayak, "Power and Solidarity: Clientage in Domestic Service," Current
Anthropobgy, 23:1 (Feb. 1982): 67-79.
13. In the United States of America, Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA),
actively concerned with problems of domestic service, formed its first Commission on
Household Employment in 1915. The National Women's Trade Union League passed the
resolution "Standardization of Domestic Service" in 1919. Under the aegis and initiative
of YWCA, National Committee on Employer-Employee Relationships was formed in
1928. Their records have been used by scholars to analyse domestic employment rela?
tionships in the U.S. See Phyllis Palmer, Domesticity and Dirt: Housewives and Domestic
Servants in the United States, 1920-1945 (Philadelphia, 1989); Rollins, Between Women:
Domestics and their Empioyers.
For records left by servants, the classic example is Liz Stanley, ed. The Diaries of Hannah
Cullwick, Victorian Maidservant (London, 1984). Among others are: Peter Beard, collector,
Longingfor Darkness: Kamantes Tales from Out of Africa, with Original Photographs (January
1914-July 1931) and Quotations from Isak Dinesen (New York, 1975); Hans C. and Judith-
Maria Buechler, Carmen: The Autobiography of a Spanish Galician Woman (Cambridge,
Mass., 1981); Elsa Joubart's recording of Poppie's story is a remarkable addition in this
genre: The Long Journey ofPoppie Nongena (Johannesburg, 1980).
14. This paper draws its sources mainly from Hindu and Brahmo writers who constituted
a significant proportion ofthe Bengali middle class. A similar process of hiring of domestic
workers as a sign of gaining respectability was also at work in Muslim households of colo?
nial Bengal. See for example Taslima Nasrin's recent memoir Amar Meyebeh (Calcutta,
2000).
15. See Rayna Rapp, "Examining Family History" in Feminist Stud
174-200.
16. See Maitreyi Krishnaraj and Karuna Chanana eds. Gender and t
and Cultural Dimensions (New Delhi,/London, 1989). pp. 17-30.
17. For negative portrayals of servants focusing on such issues as sex

in middle-class autobiographies see my article "Subverting the Mor
'Narratives of Transgression' in the Construction of Bengali Mi
Crispin Bates ed. Beyond Representations: Construction of Indian Iden
18. Based on an article by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak there is a

field whether subalterns can speak or not. See Gayatri Chakrabart
tern Speak?" in Carey Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg eds. Marxism
of Culture (Urbana, 1988), pp. 271-313. For an interesting spin
see Kamala Visweswaran's "Small Speeches, Subaltern Gender: Na
Its Historiography" in Shahid Amin and Dipesh Chakrabarty ed
(Delhi, 1996), pp. 83-125.
19. The Tagores, who came to reside in Jorasanko in North C

were one of the aristocratic families of early Calcutta. Members o
Dwarkanath Tagore, one of the leading Indian entrepreneurs, d
ties with the British. Dwarkanath was also a pioneering member of
tions such as the Landholder's Society. In the nineteenth century
Rabindranath's father, Debendranath became involved in the leade
movement in Calcutta. In many respects the Tagore family of Jora
builder and the trendsetter of contemporaneous middle class in Ca
Partners in Empire: Dwarkanath Tagore and the Age ofEnterprise in
1976).
20. The importance that the Brahmos attached to caste was evident from the accounts
of Rabindranath Tagore himself. On his way to the zamindari estate of Selaidah in Eastern
Bengal Rabindranath wrote a letter to his wife Mrinalini Debi in a somewhat funny but
confessional mode that he brought with him a part-time Brahmin cook at a rather high
rate (one rupee a day). He exhorted in a tone of sarcasm that he was paying the cook so
highly because being a Brahmin how could he eat food cooked by a non-Brahmin servant!
See Rabindranath Tagore, Chithipatra, vol. 1. Letter # 32 written to Mrinalini Debi in
1901 from Kustia on his way to Selaidaha (Calcutta, 1993). Another interesting case in
point was the encounter between Ramtanu Lahiri, an activitist Brahmo leader and the
famous Hindu social reformer Iswarchandra Vidyasagar, where Ramtanu insisted on find-
ing a Brahmin cook. It is both revealing and ironic that despite the community's avowed
repudiation of casteism, such prominent Brahmo members as Rabindranath Tagore and
Ramtanu Lahiri could not transcend the caste rules in their daily practices. For more on
this see Indra Mitra, Karunasagar Vidyasagar (Calcutta, 1992), p. 343. For a detailed dis?
cussion of caste issues for hiring of servants see my "A Genealogy of Servants: Dominance
and Subordination in Households of Colonial Bengal" in Men, Women, and Domestics:
Articulating Middle-Class Identity in Colonial Bengal (forthcoming).
21. Sumit Sarkar, "The City Imagined: Calcutta ofthe Nineteenth and Early Twentieth
Centuries" in Writing Social History (Delhi, 1998), pp. 159-185.
22. S.N. Mukherjee, "Classs, Caste and Politics in Calcutta, 1815- 1838" in Calcutta:
Essays in Urban History. (Calcutta, 1993).
23. Pradip Sinha, Calcutta in Urban History (Calcutta, 1978).
24. S.N. Mukherjee, Op. cit.
25. Bhabicharan Bandyopadhyay

drika, original pub 1230 B.S. [182
hyaya (1787-1848), Rasrachanasam
Calcutta: Essays in Urban History
26. See both Sumit Sarkar (1998)
27. See Rajat K. Ray, Social Confli

1984).
28. The Swadeshi movement of 1905 was launched against Viceroy Lord Curzon's plan
to divide Bengal into two separate provinces: the Hindu dominated Western Bengal
and the Muslim dominated Eastern Bengal. Although the pretext for the partition was
administrative convenience, it was a classic example of the deployment of the British
policy of "divide and rule." For more on Swadeshi movement see Sumit Sarkar, Swadeshi
Movement in Bengal 1903-1908 (New Delhi, 1973).
29. Bhabanicharan Bandyopadhyay, Kolikata Kamalalaya (Calcutta: Samachar Chan-

drika, 1230 BS. [1823]).
30. S.N. Mukherjee, Op. cit.
31. Meredith Borthwick, Op. cit.
32. See Tanika Sarkar, Words to Win: The Making of Amar Jiban: A Modern Autobiog?
raphy (New Delhi, 1999); "The Hindu Wife and the Hindu Nation: Domesticity and
Nationalism in Nineteenth Century Bengal" in Studies in History, 8, 2, n.s. (1992). Also
see Malabika.Karlekar, Voices From Within: Early Personal Narratives of Bengali Wbmen
(Delhi, 1991) and Meredith Borthwick, Changing Role of Women in Bengal, cited above.
33. Partha Chatterjee, "The Nationalist Resolution of the Women's Question" in San-
gari & Vaid eds. Recasting Women (New Brunswick, NJ, 1990), pp. 233-253.
34. Sumanta Banerjee, "Marginalization of Women's Popular Culture in Nineteenth

Century Calcutta" in Sangari and Vaid eds. Recasting Women, pp. 127-179.
35. Sumanta Banerjee, "The World of Ramjan Ostagar: The Common Man of Old
Calcutta" in Sukanta Chaudhury ed. Calcutta The Living City, vol. 1 Past, (Calcutta,
1990), pp. 76-84.
36. N irmala Banerjee, "Working Women in Colonial Bengal: Modernization and Margi?
nalization" in Sangari and Vaid eds. Recasting Women, pp. 269-301.
37. Census of India 1931, vol. V, Bengal and Sikkim, Part I, Report by A. E. Porter
(Calcutta, 1933).
38. See Samita Sen, Women and Labor in Late Colonial India: the Bengal Jute Industry
(Cambridge, UK, 1999), and Nirmala Banerjee, op. cit.
39. It is important to note that the same three words are also used to explain the meaning
of servant in Haricharan Bandyopadhyay ed. Bangiya Shabdakosh (Calcutta, 1966).
40. For an insightful analysis of the definitionai struggle with slavery see Indrani Chat?
terjee, Gender, Slavery and Law in Colonial India (Delhi, 1999), pp. 1-5.
41. Gideon Colquhoun Sconce, A Handy Book on the Law of Master and Servant (Cal?
cutta, 1870), p. 2.
42. The examples cited above are a very limited list of the wide r
prevailed in colonial Bengal.
43. The caste and ethnic composition of the servants were as varie
of their work. For various socio-cultural and ethnic reasons pin
caste background of the domestic workers is highly enigmatic. A
(1929) pointed out in his social commentary on old Calcutta, until
century most of the servants hired in the Bengali families came f
belonged mainly to the Kaibarta caste of Midnapore and Aguri cas
in current West Bengal. Besides, there was a Kayastha caste in
Kast or Banshkaet, who also worked as servants. Maids too came fr
the turn of the century domestic workers started coming out fr
the United Provinces (Census of India 1911, 1921, 1931). For
of the caste composition of the domestic workers see my "A G
Dominance and Subordination in Households of Early Calcutta?
Twentieth Centuries" in Men, Women, and Domestics: Articulatin
in Colonial Bengal, Oxford University Press, 2004, forthcoming.
44. For a thorough discussion on advice manuals and domestic w

"Domestic Manuals on Mistress-Servant Relationships: Construc
Class Identity through Appropriate Codes of Conduct" in Modem
2 (June-July 2001). Also see Judith E. Walsh, "What Women Le
Them Advice: Rewriting Patriarchy in Late Nineteenth-Century B
of Asian Studies, 56, # 3 (August 1997): 641-677.
45. All translations from Bengali, except otherwise stated, are mi
46. See Ambikacharan Gupta, Grihastha Jivan: Amulyajnan Bh

Some other important domestic manuals of colonial Bengal are
Grihasree (Calcutta, 1925); Anandachandra Sen Gupta, Grihinir
date indicated); Ishanchandra Basu, Jananir Kartavya (Calcutta,
Chakrabarty, Lalana-Suhrid (Calcutta, 1847).
47. See Ann Stoler, "Domestic Subversions and Children's Sexua

Education of Desire (Durham, NC, 1995), pp. 137-164. James Cliffor
ture (Cambridge, Mass, 1988); Also see, Karen Tranberg Hansen, ed
with Domesticity (New Brunswick, NJ, 1992). Peter Stallybrass an
Stairs: the Maid and the Family Romance" in The Politics and Po
(Ithaca, NY, 1986), pp. 149-170.
48. For a detailed discussion of care-giving and different areas of

mestic workers and empioyers see my chapter "Remembering and
Bengali Middle Class Recalls and Represents Domestic Workers"
Domestic Workers: Articulating Middle-Class Identity in Colonial Ben
49. Although we know from other sources such as family records

was a power differential between male and female servants and th
higher in the hierarchy of servants, the personal narratives unde
register such differences. In the same way the theme of sexuality
question of sexual exploitation are also suppressed in these narrativ
ment of such themes see my "A Genealogy of Servants: Domina
in Households of Early Calcutta?Eighteenth through Twentieth
Women, and Domestics: Articulating Middle-Class Identity in Colonial
and "Subverting the Moral Universe: Narratives of Transgression
Bengali Middle-class Identity" in Crispin Bates ed. Beyond Represe
of Indian Identity, forthcoming.
50. The suffices "dada" in "Kunjad

for addressing the eider brother an
addressed indicates that they were he
family.
51. Kaiyani Datta, Thod Bodi Khada (Calcutta, 1993), p. 75.
52. As Kaiyani Datta mentions she is not alone in doing this. There is ample evidence
of other writers, such as Sibnath Sastri (1847-1919), a social reformer and an early
architect of Indian nationalism, who openly admitted in his autobiography how he tried
to make his faithful servant Khodai immortal, by making him a central character in
his novel Mejobou. (Sibnath Sastri, Atmacharit [Calcutta, 1882]). Girishchandra Ghosh
(1844-1912), the famous nineteenth century playwright, also perpetuated the memory
of his wet-nurse in his short story Gobra (Girishchandra Ghosh: Girish Racanabali, vol. 1
[Calcutta, 1991], 3rd ed.).
53. For more on memory and its different "forms" in colonial studies see Ann L. Stoler
& Karen Strassler, "Castings for the Colonial: Memory Work in 'New Order' Java" in
Comparative Studies of Society and History, vol. 42, Number 1 (Jan. 2000): 4-48.
54. In contrast to Western literature where autobiography originated in the fourth cen?
tury with St. Augustine's Confessions, personal narratives in the autobiographicai genre
consituted a strikingly modern phenomenon in the Indian print culture that came with
colonial rule. While Bengali personal narratives mostly displayed suppressed treatment
of personal or intimate themes, they nonetheless reflect the desire to project the desired
self-image ofthe authors. For an argument along the above lines see Dipesh Chakrabarty,
"Postcoloniality and the Articfice of History: Who Speaks for 'Indian' Pasts?" in Repre?
sentations, Winter (1992) #37, pp. 1-26
55. For more on colonial critique of Bengali middle class men see Mrinalini Sinha,
CobntatMasctdimty: The 'manly Englishman and the 'effiminate Bengali' in the late nineteenth
century (Manchester, U.K., 1995). For more on auto-critique, self-ridicule, and self-irony
of the middle class see Partha Chatterjee, "The Nationalist Elite" in The Nation and Its
Fragments (Princeton, 1993), pp. 35-75. Indira Chowdhury, The Frail Hero and Virik
History : gender and the politics of culture in cohnial Bengal (Delhi, 1998); Tanika Sarkar,
Words to Win: The Making of Amar Jiban: A Modern Autobiography (New Delhi, 1999).
56. See Sarkar, Words to Win: The Making of Amar Jiban: A Modern Autobiography.
57. See Philippe Lejeune, "The Ironic Narrative of Childhood: Valles" in Philippe
Lejeune, On Autobiography, with foreword by Paul John Eakin, trans. by Katherine Leary
(Minneapolis, 1988).
58. Rabindranath Tagore, Jivansmriti (Calcutta, 1912).
59. Rabindranath Tagore, Chhekbela (Calcutta, 1940).
60. For a more detailed treatment of Tagore's poem Puraton Vritya (The Old Servant) see
my "Subverting the Moral Universe: Narratives of Transgression in the Construction of
Bengali Middle-class Identity" in Crispin Bates ed. Beyond Ref>resentation; Construction
of Indian Identity, forthcoming.
61. Abanindranath Tagore, Apan Katha (Calcutta, 1988, originally published in 1946),
pp. 13-14.
62. Sarala Debi Chaudhurani, Jivaner Jhara Pata (Calcutta, 1975, originally pub, in
1879).
63. Pramodkumar Chattopadhyaya, Prankumarer Smriticharan (
64. Pramodkumar Chattopadhyaya, op. cit., p. 42.
65. Ibid.
66. The word Dukhi, as derived from Dukhia, means "Sorrowful"/"Mournful". As the
author implies, the servants name was synonymous with his character.
67. The word Maharaj means "the great King". Dukhi Maharaj implies an attribute to
Dukhi.
68. Premankur Atarthi, Mahasthabir Jatak (Calcutta, 1994), new edition, p. 28.
69. Premankur Atarthi, op. cit. pp. 28-29.
70. For a particularly instructive discussion on persuasive and coercive modes of domi?
nation see Ranajit Guha, "Discipline and Mobilize" in Partha Chatterjee and Gyanendra
Pandey eds. Subattern Studies, vol. VII (Delhi, 1993), pp. 69-120; and "Dominance with?
out Hegemony and its Historiography" in Ranajit Guha ed. Subaltern Studies vol. VI
(Delhi, 1992).
71. Leonore Davidoff, Worlds Between: Historical Perspectives on Gender and Class (New
York, 1995).
72. For more on Bengali women's autobiography see Chitra Deb, Antahpurer Atmakatha
(Calcutta, 1984); Srabashi Ghosh, " 'Birds in a Cage': Changes in Bengali Social Life as
Recorded in Autobiographies by Women," in Economic and Political Weekly: Review of
Women's Studies 21 (October 1986); Meenakshi Mukherjee, "The Unperceived Self: A
Study of Five Nineteenth Century Autobiographies," in Karuna Chanana, ed., Social-
ization, Education and Women: Explorations in Gender Identity (New Delhi, 1988). Also
see Malabika Karlekar, Voices From Within: Early Personal Narratives of Bengali Women
(Delhi, 1991).
73. SeeAbhijitSen&AbhijitBhattacharyaeds.She/ceiefCat/ia:ShatakSuchonoaiMeyeder
Smritikatha (Calcutta, 1997). Also see Sukumar Sen, Women's Dialect in Bengal (Calcutta,
1979).
74. For women's writings in colonial Bengal see Bharati Ray ed. Sekaler Nareeshiksha:
Bamabodhini Patrika (Calcutta, 1994), a collection of women's writings from Bamabodhini
Patrika (1270-1329 B.S.), a leading women's journal in colonial India. Also see Nita
Kumar, Women as Subjects (Calcutta, 1994).
75. The term midwife is used coterminously with wet-nurse in Bengali literature.
76. Sarala Debi Chaudhurani, Jivaner Jhara Pata (Calcutta, 1975, originally pub. in
1879), p. 1.
77. The instances of maids substituting biological mothers was not confined to Tagote
family alone. An important case in point comes from the family of the "Bengal Tiger,"
Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee (1864-1924), the famous chief justice of the Calcutta High
Court and the Vice Chancellor oi the University of Calcutta. Sir Ashutosh's father
Gangaprasad along with his three siblings, following the death of their mother, were
raised by an old maid called Jahnabi, or Jani, a destitute Kayastha woman. She was so
loyal and kind-hearted that she took care of the children without even receiving any
wages for a long time. She spent the rest of her life with the Mukherjee family as a
surrogate mother until her death. Due to the severe illness of his mother following his
birth, Girishchandra Ghosh, the eminent nineteenth century Bengali playwright and
dramatist, also grew up under the

Umaprosad Mukherjee, Dheyaney Al
Girishchandra often remarked hum
could perhaps be attributed to the
woman. Ghosh's statement, while co
towards lower-caste working wome
workers, and the fact that maids su
despite the obvious reservation that
and castes, he did pay his tribute to
her. See Girish Racanabali Vol. 1 (C
Mahasweta Devi's short story "The
that illustrates the practice of hirin
brings out the emotive and social d
the hired care-giver. See Gayatri Ch
Politics (New York/London, 1988).
78. Sarala Debi Chaudhurani, Jivan
79. One may argue in this context

by the same terror and hostility th
contents of the two accounts defini
tone and sarcasm with which Rabind
in his reminiscences.
80. It needs to be pointed out that t

nineteenth and early twentieth cent
on Prasannamayi Debi and her mem
the Nation" in The Nation and Its
81. Prasannamayi Debi, "Sekaler K

110.
82. See Rassundari Debi, "Amar Jiban" in Nareshchandra Jana et al. eds. Atmakatha
(Calcutta, 1981). Rassundari Debi mentions in her autobiography that she was probably
born in 1216 B.S. (1809); when her book was first published in 1275 B.S. (1868) she was
about fifty-nine year old.
83. See Dineshchandra Sen, Grihasree (Calcutta, 1925) (10th ed.).
84. While hiring of servants was very common, the cooks had a rather belated entry in
colonial Bengali households. Employment of cooks was a new phenomenon among the
Bengali middle class in the second half of the nineteenth century. See my chapter, " A
Genealogy of Servants: Dominance and Subordination in Households of Early Calcutta?
Eighteenth through Twentieth Centuries" in Men, Women, and Domestics: Articulating
Middle-Class Identity in Cobnial Bengal (forthcoming).
85. Hemantakumari Sen Gupta, "Sekaler Ramani," in Antahpur, Baisakh, 1308 B.S.
(April 1901): 82-89.
86. lndira Debi-Chaudhurani, "Jivan Katha" (written between 1953?*55) published in

Sardadiya Ekkshan 1399 B.S. (1992).
87. Giribala Debi, Raibari, eds. Subir Ray Chandhuri and Abhijit Sen (Calcutta, 1991).
Giribala Debi, Raibari was published as a whole book in 1991 by the De's Publishing and
the School of Women's Studies, Jadavpur University, Calcutta, in 1991. It first came out
as a series in Prabasi in 1962 (1369 B.S.). Although published at a later date the novel
relates the experiences of the author in colonial times. For more on Giribala Debi and
her work see the "Introduction" to Raibari by Jasodhara Bagchi and Bani Ray.
88. "Kamini's Mother" was not the name of the maid herself. Kam
her daughter's name, and she was addressed as her mother. It is
to address elderly women not by their own names, but by referrin
their sons and daughters.
89. Renuka Debi Chaudhurani, Rakamari Niramish Ranna (Calc
90. "Mother" (Ma) is a common term of respectful address for eld

and workers most commonly address the mistress and sometimes
of the empioyer's household by this term. In this address, age and g
are less important determinants.
91. See Renuka Debi Chaudhurani, op. cit.

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Down Memory Lane: Representations of Domestic Workers in Middle Class Personal

Narratives of Colonial Bengal

By Swapna M. Banerjee University of Florida

If one rummages through the pages of autobiographies and memoi

"material relations of the hou

Bhadralok, Bhadramahila, and the Domestic Workers

As Bengal harbored the seat of the British imperial capi

tled in Calcutta, the abhijat bh

Bhadramahila or the "respecta

who serve in some form or ano

[t]he word "servant," in its ordina

In colonial Bengal any person

tween same-age workers who of

Down Memory Lane: Remini

As Bengali personal narratives mostly come from members of the well-to-do

As premeditated or deliberate as Kalyani Datta's style of presentation is, it

critique did not take the form of an unqualified blame. R

Growing Up With Domestics: In version of Hierarchy: Perspectives of Boys

One ofthe earliest memories recalled by Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941),

their presence in his life. His ot

While I was a young child, between two and four-five years

Like Abanindranath and Sarala Debi, Prankumar too, grew

The great man (mahapurush) who was accursed to come and

empioyer's kitchen, Dukhi was

That bent, disappearing Dukhia-im

These excerpts from Atarthi

An Excursion into the Women's World: Power and Aut

There is a distinct difference in the way Bengali me

emotions and feelings, were p

A very common practice among th

We hear from Hemantakumari a story of an intimidated and suppressed young

brides. The only exception was

in the hierarchical colonial fam

The foregoing discussion demonstrates that the relationship between em?

5. Meredith Borthwick, The Changing Role of Women in Bengal 1849-1905 (Princeton,

6. Radhika Singha, A Despotism ofL

7. Indrani Chatterjee, Gender, Slavery and Law (Delhi, 1999).

9. Indrani Chatterjee's work mentioned above is an exception to that trend but it

10. See Partha Chatterjee, op. cit.

17. For negative portrayals of servants focusing on such issues as sex

18. Based on an article by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak there is a

19. The Tagores, who came to reside in Jorasanko in North C

23. Pradip Sinha, Calcutta in Urban History (Calcutta, 1978).

24. S.N. Mukherjee, Op. cit.

25. Bhabicharan Bandyopadhyay

26. See both Sumit Sarkar (1998)

27. See Rajat K. Ray, Social Confli

29. Bhabanicharan Bandyopadhyay, Kolikata Kamalalaya (Calcutta: Samachar Chan-

30. S.N. Mukherjee, Op. cit.

31. Meredith Borthwick, Op. cit.

34. Sumanta Banerjee, "Marginalization of Women's Popular Culture in Nineteenth

44. For a thorough discussion on advice manuals and domestic w

45. All translations from Bengali, except otherwise stated, are mi

46. See Ambikacharan Gupta, Grihastha Jivan: Amulyajnan Bh

47. See Ann Stoler, "Domestic Subversions and Children's Sexua

48. For a detailed discussion of care-giving and different areas of

49. Although we know from other sources such as family records

50. The suffices "dada" in "Kunjad